I WRITE this book as an unequivocal supporter of Welsh devolution, but also as a journalist who has frequently written stories that do not portray the events at Cardiff Bay in a favourable light. This is not an inconsistency. The fact that some are likely to see it as such obliges me to explain my perspective.

Only in Wales, it seems to me, would the shortcomings of politicians be cited as a reason to abolish the democratic national body to which they have been elected. No-one, so far as I am aware, advocated the abolition of the House of Commons in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2009. Yet barely a day passes when some disenchanted writer of letters to newspapers or poster of messages to website forums fails to find some cause in whose name the Assembly should be scrapped.

Different standards apply, then, in the case of what is officially known as the National Assembly for Wales. Opponents of Welsh devolution – a diminishing but still vocal band – have kept its supporters on the back foot since before the Assembly was established. More insidiously, the body was handicapped from the start by the constitutional arrangements it was given.

The expectations created during the referendum campaign in 1997 were certainly over-blown. If the rhetoric of the Yes campaign was taken at face value, the Welsh economy would be rapidly transformed, the quango state swept away and a new era of tangible material and spiritual improvement would be triumphantly ushered in. Perhaps those who created such expectations believed their own propaganda. Knowing public opinion had to be galvanised in the run-up to what was always going to be a tough referendum to win, such hype was probably inevitable.

The reality was that the bulk of any parliamentary body’s work – in the Assembly’s case quasi-parliamentary – is inherently unexciting. It’s the stuff of detail and long discussions about arcane points rather than anything inspirational and visionary. The role of political leaders is to transform the mundane into the exciting by the skilful deployment of spin. This is clearly more difficult if the political leader of the day is uncharismatic, like the Assembly’s first leader, Alun Michael; more so if the conditions for creating a mood of excitement are not available.

That’s why, it seems to me, a legislature’s ability to make its own laws is so important. To suggest that those running what became known as the Welsh Assembly Government could increase significantly the prosperity of Wales within a few years was fanciful. But with primary lawmaking powers available from the outset, it wouldn’t have taken much imagination to come up with a programme of new legislation that would have demonstrated very quickly how having the Assembly made a tangible difference. If Alun Michael had been able, on his first day in office, to issue an invitation to the people of Wales to submit proposals for new Welsh laws, the new institution could have got off to a flying start.

Instead, Assembly business quickly got bogged down in procedural and process-driven minutiae. Much time was spent discussing the establishment of frameworks within which stakeholders could discuss between themselves how best to reach a consensus on the way forward in respective fields. The Assembly risked becoming a paradise for networkers, but off-limits to the concerns of ordinary people.

What could be more humiliating for a legislature than to be forced into the position of begging a superior body to legislate on its behalf? That’s where the Assembly found itself in its early years – sending off a series of requests for Parliamentary Bills like a child writing to Santa Claus with a list of wished-for Christmas presents. As with the child’s Christmas list, only a proportion of the requests for legislation were granted. Westminster had its own, in its view more important business to transact, after all.

The Legislative Competence Order (LCO) system has proved to be cumbersome, inefficient and absurdly time-consuming. It also places the Assembly Government entirely at the mercy of MPs and unelected peers – the latter with more power to derail Welsh legislation than they have had since the House of Lords’ ability to veto legislation was curtailed in 1911. The devolution settlement stemming from the Government of Wales Act 2006 is no substitute for straightforward primary lawmaking powers, and will act as an energy-sapping and attention-diverting handicap on the Assembly and its Government until superseded.

Covering the Assembly as a journalist for a decade and more has not always been a life-enhancing experience. At times, it has seemed as if the entire political class of Wales was participating in a play devised by that delicious dramatist of the absurd, Eugène Ionesco – I am thinking particularly of the row over seating arrangements in the Assembly debating chamber following the 2003 election.

But for all the ups and downs – and there are many downs – it’s my firm view that Wales as a nation is all the better for having acquired its own democratic legislature. Even if it remains, for the time being, a Poor Man’s Parliament.

Poor Man’s Parliament by Martin Shipton is published by Seren at £12.99